Chess Not Checkers: How to Lead Your Company for the Long Game

Checkers is fast. You see a move, you make it, and you do not think much past the next turn. Chess is slow and deliberate, and every piece is placed with the next several moves in mind. Most business owners and managers I meet are playing checkers: reacting to today's fire, hiring in a panic, and wondering why nothing feels settled.

In this episode I unpack the book Chess Not Checkers by Mark Miller and Randy Gravitt. Randy is a coach and consultant, and Mark was head trainer for Chick-fil-A and has written several leadership books out of that training. The book gives five areas of impact: bet on leadership, act as one, win the heart, excel at execution, and it's your move. I will walk through each and add what I see in the companies I coach.

Move 1: Bet on leadership. What does it mean to set the pace?

As a leader, you should be looking farther down the road than anyone else on your team, department or family. Setting the pace means deciding where we are going, what impact we want, how fast we will tackle it, and what the work ethic looks like. You also have to grow your leadership team, the handful of people running marketing, sales, production and finance. Tools like DISC or the Working Genius can help the team understand each other's gifts and how they fit together.

People should be able to watch you and see the pace. You are not perfect, and you will have bad days, but you show up on time or early, you listen, you come prepared with an agenda, you follow up, and you communicate. Leaders go first. That is a chess move, a long play.

The book gives an acronym for how a leader sets the pace. It is HEART:

• Hunger. Do you want it, and do you understand the price you will have to pay?
• Expect great results. From your team, your customers and yourself.
• Accept responsibility. Reject passivity and lead courageously. Are you open to hard conversations about decisions and results?
• Respond. I hear it constantly: we sent an email, left a note, and have not heard back. If you want to set the pace, you have to respond in a timely way, be available and be consistent.
• Think. Set aside quiet time, with a blank whiteboard if it helps, to look at reports, the market, and the last year and next year.

How do you hire the heart and build your bench?

A lot of us hire a great resume with great references and great experience, but we are not tuned in to how the person is put together. What I have learned is that we need to hire a rock star with a little experience. Look for drive, competitiveness, self-motivation and self-direction. They may be a little out of the box, but I can teach them the job. I cannot teach how they were raised or how hard they work.

John Maxwell's advice is to find the right person, hire them, and then figure out what to do with them. Mark Miller's version is the line I keep coming back to:

When you get the heart, you get the whole person.

Building the bench also means hiring before there is a crisis. Here is the common pattern: someone leaves or gets let go, we hurry to hire a replacement, they get a couple of days of instruction and then run wide open, and we wonder why they are not doing better. We waited too late. Instead, ask where you want to be in three, five and ten years, then work backward. If you will need a hire in three to six months, start thinking about job postings now, because finding the right person can take two or three months, and training another month or two.

Hiring young is a good option too. Interns and recent graduates may not have much experience, but if they are driven and have a strong work ethic, you can train them and they grow up in your culture.

How do you grow people, and what is SERVE?

Small companies tell me they are not big enough for an HR department. I would challenge that. One or two pages in a Word document, maintained by someone on the team, can change how you grow people: a 30-day onboarding plan, and a monthly training session from a software video or a book. Little baby steps.

The book's second acronym is SERVE, and the secret to success is serving:

1. See the future. Visit competitors, go to conventions, read, and talk with people ahead of you in the industry.
2. Engage and develop others. Challenge your rock stars and give them chances to be exposed to more.
3. Reinvent continuously. You should almost never hear yourself say, this is the way we have always done it.
4. Value results and relationships. You want results through people, not just people and hope.
5. Embody the values. Keep your values to five to seven, live them, and run every hiring, discipline and team decision through them.

Growing the organization also means growing efficiency, profitability, customer satisfaction and culture. When I ask owners whether they could make more profit, it is often a new thought. We have always made about this much. It is worth asking.

Move 2: Act as one. Why does clarity come before everything?

Ambiguity creates confusion and pause. Everyone should know what you are trying to do, how their job affects the company, and what the results are, measured daily, weekly and monthly. Take away I am not really sure if that is the number they were after.

The book says to staff with eagles, people with talent who want to soar. I was teaching a time management class when a man on the front row, running a company, asked how to get these millennials to work. I asked him a few questions. Do you have core values? No. A mission or vision? No. Five-year or ten-year goals? No. A target market or marketing strategy? No. Then how would any employee know what to do? It does not matter which generation shows up. Talented, driven people will crush it when they understand the why, are challenged, and feel noticed and valued.

That brings me to the thing I had to learn the hard way. I walked up on a job one day and started pointing out a few things that were not right. The man there asked if he could ask me a question. This is a great job, a lot is going right, he said. Why do you notice the wrong things first? It hit me like a ton of bricks. I put a recurring monthly note on my calendar that says focus on the 90% good, not the 10% bad. Celebrate now, and coach and train on a different day. People say pay is number five or six on why they leave, and who they work for is at the top of why they stay.

Move 3: Win the heart. How do you build community and culture?

Make it about we. Celebrate, appreciate and have some fun. When I worked for an organization whose owner promised a company trip every two years for hitting our goals, we had dinner on an aircraft carrier, flew on a plane for the first time to Mexico, and held a company event on a football field. People work harder when they are celebrated for it.

Winning the heart also means sharing ownership. Delegate, empower, and let people stumble a little. Fear is a terrible partner, and if you cannot let go, you and your company stay stuck. Foster dreams, and ask the next question: how can I help you get where you want to go?

Move 4: Excel at execution. Why are the basics enough?

Master the fundamentals: clarity, measurement, systems, processes and continuous improvement. Too often we get going without the foundation in place, and then the chaos is confusing and frustrating for everyone. We hope for amazing results while planting chaotic seeds.

I also recommend The Great Game of Business: share the score. Everyone should know the numbers and carry a piece of the load when things are tight, and celebrate together when they are great. Then raise the bar. Not 80-hour weeks, but challenging people to think, own and experiment.

Move 5: It's your move. Are the right people on the bus?

Who is influencing you, and what voices are you listening to? In your organization, do the people on your leadership team match your values and believe in what you are doing? Not doubters, and not people who drag the room down before a meeting starts. Right people on the bus, in the right seats: do they get it, want it and have the capacity?

And if you have coached, trained and equipped someone, and you keep talking about the same person at nearly every meeting, that is a giant red flag. The Traction book calls this the 36 hours of pain. The fear is that you have nobody to replace them. But you do them no favors by waiting, and you let them go find a place where they can thrive.

So decide to move from the quick reaction of checkers to the methodical, intentional game of chess. Bet on leadership, act as one, win the heart, excel at execution, and make your move.